Girl Talk (CD) [Explicit]

Kate Nash

Amoeba Review

03/05/2013

On her third album, Kate Nash has fully left behind the obedient chart aspirant who played by the rules, in favor of a bratty fuzzpop feminisit agitator who just might make Courtney Love or Kim Deal proud. A rush of ebulliently jarring, often lo-fi pop trash isn't what you'd expect from a BRIT awards winner who seemed destined to rule the mainstream (nor what you'd expect a major label to let her get away with), but it's quite the breath of fresh air, and I say it's an ennobling development for a girl who always seemed a bit too weird to be a Top of the Pops heroine. She's always been unashamed of her average-sized body and not-quite-supermodel looks, and she's always been a voice for girls who don't quite want to be yuppie housewives and this album finally hits all her themes with a vengeance. There's a bit of Flatmates / Dum Dum Girls-style jangle ("3AM"), a fair amount of shouty '90s flipoff pop damage (the excellent "Cherry Pickin'"), even a little vintage '77 feminist trash punk ("All Talk"). This is a really good alternative to Adele-style soviet suprematism, and I hope it carries forward and finds a following. Somewhere, Poly Styrene is a little happier and so am I.